Independent Tesla investor and analyst James Stephenson took to X today to emphasize the staggering growth in Tesla’s unit sales.
Stephenson pointed out that the magnitude of Tesla’s year-over-year growth often gets overlooked due to the visual limitations of traditional charts.
He explained that while charts may show consistent growth, they fail to capture the relative increase in sales over time. “Without a good frame of reference, it’s hard to appreciate how much more Tesla is beating their previous records by,” he said.
What gets lost with some of my charts is the magnitude of just how many more people are buying a Tesla every year. "It's right there on the chart, James, how could we miss it?"… I hear you asking.
Well, to illustrate what I mean, here's a chart I could have posted 3 years ago… pic.twitter.com/fQclTv5jQu
— James Stephenson (@ICannot_Enough) October 3, 2023
As an example, he noted that Tesla has increased unit sales by more than 500,000 vehicles over the past 12 months, a figure that would be “literally off-the-chart” if plotted on a chart from three years ago.
Check out the crazy chart below:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to Stephenson’s analysis, stating, “Your predictions have been very accurate.” Musk further added, “Aspiring to be less wrong is the way.”
The exchange between Stephenson and Musk highlights the challenges in visually representing Tesla’s exponential growth and underscores the company’s remarkable performance in the electric vehicle market.
Tesla announced its Q3 numbers yesterday, revealing over 435,000 cars delivered, growth of 27% year-over-year.
This chart very clearly shows that Tesla is doubling its production every 2 years AND less.
Although there were 3 years when they didn’t quite reach 50% annual growth, their overall CAGR is almost dead on at 50% CAGR for this 10 year period. 2017 and 2022 did almost exactly that rate. In 10 years they have increased production by 2 orders of
magnitude….100x from 17,950 to 1,729,352. The Gordon will claim that all of a sudden, for no real good reason, Tesla has hit the wall and will no longer be increasing in growth anymore! Tesla has made it very clear that they are hell bent on reaching 20M/yr. and from everything we have seen so far, IF they maintain this pace, they will hit that goal in 2029. IF however, they miss their CAGR target of 50%/yr. they might not get there until maybe 2030 or 31, 32. When we are talking such large numbers, who cares if they are a few years late? This is a monumental accomplishment! It is still very early in the game and another 10x is needed in the next 7-10 years. Bravo Tesla and Team. It’s also interesting to note that James’ Q3 projected production/delivery numbers were almost dead on, less than 100 off from Tesla’s official number.
The best fit (least square exponential) of the quarterly deliveries from 2013 to now (from SEC 10-Q filings) shows
Deliveries = 3,701 e^(0.1161 q), where q is the number of quarters since Q4 2012 (q = 43 during Q3 2023).
The quarterly growth factor of e^0.1161 means an annual growth rate of e^(4×0.1161) = 1.59, or 59%, over the entire 10 years! This means a doubling time of 1.49 y, or every 18 months! Truly remarkable.
Exactly! I used a napkin, you used a calculator lol!
Impressive by both fronts! nicely done!